What wouldI do?
I don’tusually think much about guns. I suppose it is because I live in anarea where gun deaths are not an everyday occurrence, although evenhere the city looms near and such reports are becoming more common.
First thedisclaimer. Personally I could care less about guns. I grew up in asmall rural town where guns were so common the high school kids wouldbring them to school in the morning and leave them in the coatroom togo hunting after school. I suppose it would be honest to say that inthe five years I was there two high school kids got shot in huntingaccidents. Neither fatal.
Right now Iown a handgun. Haven’t used it in over a decade and and have noplans for ever using it. I am not a gun expert, neither am I a gunfanatic and I don’t see any way in the world we can stop the kindof thing that has happened so often with our mass killings so long asour present culture exists. That means change, if any, will be longterm and that change would have to be primarily cultural.
But in themeantime things have gotten a bit out of hand and serious people willtry to mitigate our problem as best we can. Arguing about “gunrights” has as much effect as spitting in the ocean. If we arehonest I think we must say that there will not be a gun ban in theforeseeable future. Maybe we should start talking about gunresponsibility.
Cars arefar more useful than guns but they are the only thing in the ballparkthat can compete with the deaths racked up by guns. Maybe we couldtreat guns more like cars. If we already do some of this stuff thenforgive me. I have not researched this it is simply off the top ofmy head.
We licensecars and we should also license guns in a manner similar to carregistrations. Like cars, these registrations should be renewed everyyear with an appropriate license fee. If a gun is sold, or stolen,or given away, or lost that should be recorded in the same way as carregistrations and it should be done very quickly. Failure to do sowould result in a very very severe penalty to the last registeredowner.
We licensedrivers. We should license gun owners, all gun owners. We requirethat drivers are competent to drive. We should make sure gun ownersare competent to use their weapon. We require tests every few yearsto make sure drivers retain their competence. We should do the samewith gun owners. This should require not only a competence test butsome kind of psychological evaluation. I have no idea what thatwould entail but then I am not a psychologist.
Car ownersare required to have insurance. So should gun owners. Most of ourgun accidents are just that, accidents. Since there are so many itonly seems reasonable that owners guarantee some degree of financialresponsibility should they screw up. As with automobiles if onescrews up too often insurance would become prohibitive. Anyonecausing an accident without insurance and any gun owner found not tohave insurance would be very severely punished.
I wouldeliminate the so called “gun shows” thereby getting rid of allthe loopholes, both legal and illegal that they produce.
I can’tsee a lot wrong with semi automatics other than they can be modifiedfairly easily and inexpensively to become automatic or to come very,very close to an automatic. These modifications are out there andsome are still not banned by the Fed. They should be.
Clips areanother matter. In any of our massacres it was important that thegun be reloaded very quickly. If the weapon had to be reloaded withanything other than a quick replace preloaded clip much less damagewould be done. The capacity of the clip is also a factor. Howthirty round clips are allowed anywhere but the military is beyondme.. I would ban large capacity clips.
One cansay, with reason, that a pocketful of eight round clips is littledifferent. True enough but it is somewhat different. It slowsthings down a bit but I feel that every little bit helps. Handgunswith large capacity clips are really hard to justify. I can’tbegin to make an argument for them.
We shouldalso keep a closer watch on our manufacturers and on the gunimports..
It has alsobeen a long time since I have hunted but in my day the number ofshells in the gun were limited. If I remember correctly it was threefor ducks and five for bigger game. Were it strictly up to me I wouldget away from the clips altogether and load the shells manually likethe lever action Winchester.
I don’tthink any of these things would cause any thing but mild discomfortto the gun owner, any gun owner.
Arguments for and against guns are very differentin rural and urban areas and these attitudes are as real as they arehard to address.
Havingsaid all this can I say with any certainty they will make one bit ofdifference in mass killings? No, I can’t. These are usually bydisturbed folks and often they appear normal. How about streetkilling and accident’s? Here is more of a probable thing with thehonest answer being” it can’t hurt”. Until we can get a handleon all those guns now floating free in the country it will bedifficult to make a major difference., That doesn’t mean we shouldnot try.
As Imentioned at the start of this most of our problems are cultural. Wegrow up with a certain mindset and too often that mindset isdominated by macho gun ideology. Big man, big gun kind of crap. Itmay be silly but you can see it on this board. Many seem to have amilitary fetish with visions of grandeur of themselves saving therepublic in daring battles against a barbaric government. Never mindthat this vision is as childish as it is improbable. This may takesome doing to change and it will not be done soon.
If it is tobe changed it will have to be a generational thing and, as always, itstarts with the kids. There is no reason for toys and BB guns tomimic assault rifles. There is no reason to glorify violence, viacomputer games, movies and videos.
The primarycause of any cultural behavior is the parents. If they are doing acrappy job it just may reflect how little help they get from thecommunity at large.
I don’tusually think much about guns. I suppose it is because I live in anarea where gun deaths are not an everyday occurrence, although evenhere the city looms near and such reports are becoming more common.
First thedisclaimer. Personally I could care less about guns. I grew up in asmall rural town where guns were so common the high school kids wouldbring them to school in the morning and leave them in the coatroom togo hunting after school. I suppose it would be honest to say that inthe five years I was there two high school kids got shot in huntingaccidents. Neither fatal.
Right now Iown a handgun. Haven’t used it in over a decade and and have noplans for ever using it. I am not a gun expert, neither am I a gunfanatic and I don’t see any way in the world we can stop the kindof thing that has happened so often with our mass killings so long asour present culture exists. That means change, if any, will be longterm and that change would have to be primarily cultural.
But in themeantime things have gotten a bit out of hand and serious people willtry to mitigate our problem as best we can. Arguing about “gunrights” has as much effect as spitting in the ocean. If we arehonest I think we must say that there will not be a gun ban in theforeseeable future. Maybe we should start talking about gunresponsibility.
Cars arefar more useful than guns but they are the only thing in the ballparkthat can compete with the deaths racked up by guns. Maybe we couldtreat guns more like cars. If we already do some of this stuff thenforgive me. I have not researched this it is simply off the top ofmy head.
We licensecars and we should also license guns in a manner similar to carregistrations. Like cars, these registrations should be renewed everyyear with an appropriate license fee. If a gun is sold, or stolen,or given away, or lost that should be recorded in the same way as carregistrations and it should be done very quickly. Failure to do sowould result in a very very severe penalty to the last registeredowner.
We licensedrivers. We should license gun owners, all gun owners. We requirethat drivers are competent to drive. We should make sure gun ownersare competent to use their weapon. We require tests every few yearsto make sure drivers retain their competence. We should do the samewith gun owners. This should require not only a competence test butsome kind of psychological evaluation. I have no idea what thatwould entail but then I am not a psychologist.
Car ownersare required to have insurance. So should gun owners. Most of ourgun accidents are just that, accidents. Since there are so many itonly seems reasonable that owners guarantee some degree of financialresponsibility should they screw up. As with automobiles if onescrews up too often insurance would become prohibitive. Anyonecausing an accident without insurance and any gun owner found not tohave insurance would be very severely punished.
I wouldeliminate the so called “gun shows” thereby getting rid of allthe loopholes, both legal and illegal that they produce.
I can’tsee a lot wrong with semi automatics other than they can be modifiedfairly easily and inexpensively to become automatic or to come very,very close to an automatic. These modifications are out there andsome are still not banned by the Fed. They should be.
Clips areanother matter. In any of our massacres it was important that thegun be reloaded very quickly. If the weapon had to be reloaded withanything other than a quick replace preloaded clip much less damagewould be done. The capacity of the clip is also a factor. Howthirty round clips are allowed anywhere but the military is beyondme.. I would ban large capacity clips.
One cansay, with reason, that a pocketful of eight round clips is littledifferent. True enough but it is somewhat different. It slowsthings down a bit but I feel that every little bit helps. Handgunswith large capacity clips are really hard to justify. I can’tbegin to make an argument for them.
We shouldalso keep a closer watch on our manufacturers and on the gunimports..
It has alsobeen a long time since I have hunted but in my day the number ofshells in the gun were limited. If I remember correctly it was threefor ducks and five for bigger game. Were it strictly up to me I wouldget away from the clips altogether and load the shells manually likethe lever action Winchester.
I don’tthink any of these things would cause any thing but mild discomfortto the gun owner, any gun owner.
Arguments for and against guns are very differentin rural and urban areas and these attitudes are as real as they arehard to address.
Havingsaid all this can I say with any certainty they will make one bit ofdifference in mass killings? No, I can’t. These are usually bydisturbed folks and often they appear normal. How about streetkilling and accident’s? Here is more of a probable thing with thehonest answer being” it can’t hurt”. Until we can get a handleon all those guns now floating free in the country it will bedifficult to make a major difference., That doesn’t mean we shouldnot try.
As Imentioned at the start of this most of our problems are cultural. Wegrow up with a certain mindset and too often that mindset isdominated by macho gun ideology. Big man, big gun kind of crap. Itmay be silly but you can see it on this board. Many seem to have amilitary fetish with visions of grandeur of themselves saving therepublic in daring battles against a barbaric government. Never mindthat this vision is as childish as it is improbable. This may takesome doing to change and it will not be done soon.
If it is tobe changed it will have to be a generational thing and, as always, itstarts with the kids. There is no reason for toys and BB guns tomimic assault rifles. There is no reason to glorify violence, viacomputer games, movies and videos.
The primarycause of any cultural behavior is the parents. If they are doing acrappy job it just may reflect how little help they get from thecommunity at large.
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